Everything That Begins Must End
by storiesandabsurdities
Summary: When someone is left waiting- could you make the choice to wait with them?


"Rorrrrrry!"

Amy Pond's bright Scottish accent cut through the crisp New York air. He'd gone to grab them something to eat. He said that there was a hot dog stand just a few feet around the corner in the park they were visiting— Central Park to be exact— but he'd been gone much too long. The Doctor followed close behind her; his head not going to the darker possibilities for Rory's long absence and instead focusing on a lighter one— maybe he'd just gotten lost.

Amy rounded the corner and there it was— the hot dog stand. But her husband was nowhere to be found. The stand was void of customers at the moment so Amy marched up to it, running a hand through her long red hair and sighing.

"Have you seen a man come through here? Grey jacket, blonde hair. A sort of… big-ish nose…?"

The man working the stand simply shook his head. Amy muttered a thank you before taking off down the sidewalk past the hot dog stand. She'd made it some ways before she'd noticed that the Doctor was no longer following her. She spun on the spot and saw him frozen just a few feet from the stand, his eyes wide. She walked back down and stood in front of him, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

"Hellllo? Doctor? Are you okay?"

The Doctor didn't answer for a few more moments, jolting out of his own thoughts suddenly and looked at Amy but didn't say a word. He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and scanned the air between them earnestly, mumbling to himself about time imprints and something that sounded like, 'Oh dear Rassillon, no.'

Amy waited, a little impatiently, folding her arms across her chest and tapping her foot. After a few more minutes of him scanning and re-scanning the air in front of her, Amy let out a huff of air.

"What are you doing? We need to find Rory. I'm sure he's just wandered down the wrong path or something."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Amy. He hasn't wandered down the wrong path."

"What?" Amy shook her own head. "No— you can't possibly know that." Her stomach was starting to drop with the look he was giving her. Her hands began to shake. "Let's just go. We can find him— I'm sure he's just right down here."

Amy turned and began to walk back down the path but the Doctor caught her arm and held her in place. She didn't dare turn around and face him. There was something about the look in his eyes when he'd been looking at her before that made her believe already that she wasn't going to like what he was about to say. Silent tears fell down her cheeks.

"Amy— there were Weeping Angels. I don't know how it's possible for them to have done it. There are so many people around!" He sounded frustrated and his grip on her arm tightened uncomfortably before he let her go. "They… they got to him— to Rory. He's not dead! At least I don't think but he has been… sent back in time. But, we can find him, Amy. We _will_ find him."

Weeping Angels. Just the sound of their names made her grow as cold as ice with crippling fear. She'd only met them once, but the encounter was stuck firmly onto her mind. It was a deep wound to her psyche that would never go away. She flinched involuntarily.

"Can you…" Her voice failed her for a moment and she turned around to face him at last, tear tracks all down her face. Her eyes were pleading. "Can you trace him?"

There was a loud noise just to the left of them that cut off the Doctor's reply. A woman appeared out of a bright light, her big mass of curly blonde hair shining in the bright sunlight. The woman's lips twisted into a somewhat annoyed but still happy smile. She walked over to the pair.

"Hello, sweetie. Do you know how difficult it is to find you?" This was directed to the Doctor but as soon as River trained her eyes on her mother's face, her smirk fell right off her face, replaced by a look of worry. "Mum? What's wrong?"

Amy wiped at her face, erasing the tear tracks but not the look of absolute desperation off of her face. "Rory. We need to find Rory."

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that he hasn't just wandered off?" River's voice was lacking in its usual luster. "Explain, now." This was directed to the Doctor as she could see her mother was in no state for explanations.

The Doctor needed but only two words. "Weeping Angels."

River was physically startled. The large intake of breath she had sucked in when she'd heard the name had shaken her shoulders and rocked her back on the heels of her feet causing her to temporarily lose her balance. She went to Amy then, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulder just as she'd done when they'd last encountered the Weeping Angels and looked back to the Doctor, mimicking her mother's words unknowingly.

"Can you trace him?"

The Doctor rubbed his hands over his face. "I can only trace what they left behind. Every time they send someone back, it leaves an imprint. But these imprints can always be manipulated. The Angels are more powerful than you can imagine. I can only go on what they left behind for me to find."

Amy, who had been silent through their whole exchange, spoke up then. Her voice was a lot stronger now, more determined. "Please,"

He nodded once and turned, beckoning for them to follow him only as an afterthought as his mind was swarmed with the coordinates the sonic had produced. Amy was his best friend and he would do anything for her— go to the ends of the Earth and the realms of time and space to see her happy. And without Rory… he knew she never would be.

They reached the TARDIS several minutes later. The Doctor raced up to the console, punching in the coordinates furiously as he felt Amy and River come up to stand on either side of him. He turned, going around the circular device, flipping levers and pressing buttons in a rhythm that only he could understand. Then he pulled the last lever and the TARDIS jerked itself into action, sending them whirling through the Time Vortex to their destination— to Rory.

When she landed, the Doctor raced from the console to the door, throwing it open and stepping out into the crisp air. He looked around and his heart dropped. They weren't in a town or a quaint countryside. They had landed… in a graveyard. And just as Amy and River joined him outside, his eyes fell on the tombstone right in front of him.

_Here lies Rory Alexander Williams_

_A man practiced in the art of waiting._

He looked down and there were dates inscribed below that. The date of his birth must have been Rory's own doing, changing merely the year to match up with the time period and nothing more but the date of his death was the most unsettling. According to this tombstone, Rory Williams had been dead for over fifty years. And the Doctor had just seen him less than an hour ago.

Amy walked forward from the Doctor's side, falling to her knees on the grass in front of the tombstone. She ran her fingers gently over the words inscribed there. _A man practiced in the art of waiting._ More silent tears fell down her cheeks, her whole frame shaking with sobs she tried to contain. Would he always be left waiting for her?

There was a chill in the air and Amy caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked up and the movement stopped, but only because it was locked in her eyesight. Frozen to stone— a Weeping Angel.

Amy stared at it with amazement, remembering not to look it in the eye and while keeping her own wide open. The Doctor and River looked up to catch it as well. Amy stood up and began to walk toward it; her head suddenly filled with visions of Rory is Victorian dress on a hillside. He was merely sitting there, his head in his hands. And then it dawned on her— he was waiting for her.

"Amy, stop. Come back. That thing is dangerous."

The Doctor could have been speaking in a whisper for as much of his words Amy actually heard. She continued to step closer and closer until she was almost nose to nose with the Angel, her eyes staring directly into its chest. She gave a small smile.

"It wants to take me to Rory."

There was a long pause before the Doctor sighed. "Amy, it's playing with your mind. Step away from it now. Amy, please."

"No." Her voice is strong. "No, it's going to take me to Rory."

"Amy, that thing is going to snap your neck. Now please, get away from it."

Her voice faltered this time, cracking under the emotion of seeing her husband's name on a tombstone, knowing all the years he spent alone waiting for her to save him; knowing that she'd failed him yet again. She shook her head. "Please, trust me."

The Doctor and River exchanged glances behind her back. For several moments, none of them said anything at all. Then the Doctor sighed, looking from Amy's back to River and nodding. "Okay, on the count of three."

Tears began to spill down River's cheeks. "One."

"Two." The Doctor managed to croak out, tears filling his own eyes.

"Three."

The last number had come from Amy, but it had only been a whisper. At her prompt, all three of them had shut their eyes, leaving Amy at the mercy of the Weeping Angel. When the Doctor and River opened their eyes again, she was gone. They could at least take solace in the fact that her lifeless body wasn't lying on the ground in front of them. River gasped audibly.

"Doctor, the tombstone. Look."

Indeed, when the Doctor looked at the tombstone again, the inscription had changed just a bit. He smiled through his tears.

_Here lies Rory Alexander Williams_

_A man practiced in the art of waiting;_

_And Amelia Jessica Pond_

_The woman who chose to wait with him._

The Doctor gave a weak laugh, winding his arm around River's waist and giving her a tight squeeze. She laughed with him, her laugh not surprisingly just as weak as his, before she turned to walk back into the TARDIS. The Doctor stood there for just a moment long. He took the three middle fingers of his right hand and pressed them to his lips before bringing them to rest on the cold stone where his friends' names were now inscribed forever and he sighed.

"Bye-bye, Ponds."

Then he turned and walked back into the TARDIS which, within a few moments, had vanished from sight.


End file.
